


Smile on Me

by Roguefemme



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, not onscreen "death", results of Order 66
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 03:47:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15258744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roguefemme/pseuds/Roguefemme





	Smile on Me

  
    Sergeant Crackshot of the Imperial Academy looked down at the crowd of natural-born cadets milling about in the quad, gathering there for the ceremony to come.  
  
    Empire Day. The day the Empire was born. And the day the Jedi died.  
  
    Crackshot despised Empire Day.  
  
    He'd never tell that to Master Sergeant Dogma, for Dogma hated the Jedi. Having heard the story about Umbara he couldn't entirely blame Dogma for that, but secretly Crackshot still mourned his General.  
  
    When they first met, Jedi Master Kit Fisto had been one of the most alien beings the shiny had ever seen. He'd been startled when Fisto had begun to speak in perfect Basic, in a quiet and friendly voice with an accent that was appealing rather than alien.  
  
    What Crackshot remembered most, however, was his smile. He'd never expected that playful, joyous, very human expression on a being so different from himself. As time went on, however, Fisto's men didn't just get used to their general's smile; they came to depend on it as a comfort. No matter how long and troublesome the mission, no matter how bleak things seemed, if General Fisto could still smile then things would be all right.  
  
    The young clone had wondered at times how his _vode_ in other battalions got by with Jedi generals who were not so warm and openly caring as Kit Fisto. He'd met some other Jedi generals over the course of the war - the compassionate but rather dour General Windu, young and slightly madcap General Skywalker (and his barely-less madcap padawan, Commander Tano), and General Kenobi, who was polite and dignified but always seemed rather tired. General Secura was nearly as warm and kind (especially when General Fisto was near), but she was just not _their_ general.  All of the Jedi generals seemed decent enough, but Crackshot and his battalion _vode_ had been glad and proud to be General Kit Fisto's men.  
  
    ( _Few who knew him now were aware that his name had once been a sarcastic moniker for a shiny whose sharpshooting scores were the lowest in his battalion. Hour upon hour of extra time at practice trying to improve his accuracy with a blaster had accomplished little, until one day General Fisto had come upon him and asked him why he spent so much time there when he would do better to rest. He hadn't meant to admit it but he'd told the general everything, how he tried so hard and how ashamed he felt that he couldn't seem to do better. His general had smiled, and inexplicably the pain and frustration inside him eased a little._  
  
_"You press yourself too hard." From another it might have been a rebuke but in his General's warm, kind voice it seemed only caring advice. Fisto rested his hands on the young man's shoulders and leaned down a little to look him in the eyes. "The tension only makes your task harder. Breathe out, let the tension flow from your being, and let yourself be still. You can hit the target. You need only relax and allow yourself to do it."_  
  
_Fisto had pointed at the target, the shiny had turned, tried to relax as instructed, and with the general's hand still resting warmly on his shoulder, he'd raised the practice blaster and fired another set. The resulting score was the best he'd ever managed._  
  
_"Neither your hands nor your eyes are at fault," the general had told him gently.  "You need only clear your mind and heart of distraction, and when you are quiet inside you will do better then you ever imagined." Fisto smiled, and the young clone believed his general beyond doubt. Despite all the demands on him the general had found time to instruct young Crackshot in how to meditate like a Jedi, to clear his mind and settle his emotions. And the name that had once been a taunt had become the truth, because Kit Fisto had smiled at him and said he could do it._  
  
_He'd wondered later, was this what having a father was like?_ )    
  
    Crackshot didn't believe in gods or predestined fate, but if there was anything in the galaxy that silently influenced events, he thanked it that _his_ general had not been near when Order 66 was given. He knew that if he had helped to kill General Fisto, he'd have taken the respite some of the _vode_ in other battalions had - turning his blaster on himself to escape the pain and guilt.  
  
    Then again, maybe where General Fisto had been had doomed Crackshot anyway. He knew the official story that four Jedi Masters had tried to kill the Supreme Chancellor and take control of the Republic for themselves.  He knew too that it was a lie. His general had been one of those four, and he knew to the center of his being that General Fisto had been no traitor nor an assassin. If his general truly had been trying to kill the Supreme Chancellor, there had to have been a better reason, a selfless reason. A _good_ reason. The Jedi had not been the traitors. They had been the betrayed. He _knew_ it.  
  
    ( _He dreamed sometimes of the General's smile, but it was sad and resigned, lacking the pure joy that had characterized his general in life. Crackshot woke from those dreams with tears on his face and his stomach twisting in grief and helpless anger_.)  
  
    That conviction had been confirmed in the years following, as the clone troopers had steadily disappeared from the Navy until only a lucky few like Master Sergeant Dogma and Crackshot himself remained active in the newly formed Empire. The clone troopers had outlived their usefulness, common citizens had already thought little of them, and the only people who might have stood for them were murdered by the clones' own hands. They'd been easy pickings once the Jedi were dead.  
  
    Crackshot had been lucky to get this job at the Academy at Raithal, training young natural-borns to be officers of the Imperial Navy. He did his job quietly to the best of his ability and never hinted at the doubt and rage in his heart when he thought of his general and the other Jedi who hadn't deserved to die, and what might have happened to the clone troopers because after they'd killed their only advocates, no one else cared what happened to them.  
  
    He didn't hate the Empire; after all, it was made up of the same citizens that had been part of the Republic he'd fought for. He couldn't even hate the natural-born cadets and young officers who were rapidly filling the ranks of the Imperial Navy. It was that power-mad dictator Emperor Palpatine who was the true evil behind all of it, and Crackshot hated him even more than he'd hated Count Dooku. For years he had silently resented, he just hadn't had any idea what he could do about it.  
  
    Then a few years into his teaching job a young cadet had arrived who was just a bit _too_ good at everything, and Crackshot knew. He just _knew_. Then the Grand Inquisitor came and did his tests, and took the boy away, and that was that. Nearly a year later Captain Arrel returned from a trip away from the Academy seething with rage and ill-hidden pain. With little prompting he'd learned why: she'd found out that her former student had been mindtwisted into an Inquisitor. No hint of the boy's former easygoing personality had remained, only a feral creature hyper-focused on hunting Jedi.  
  
    When Crackshot returned to his chamber that evening, he found himself shaking uncontrollably. Now he knew what the Empire did with those young people whom the Jedi would once have taken as their own. Even those loyal and brave enough to join the Imperial Navy would not be safe from being brutalized until they were barely sentient. And the clone knew what he had to do. The Jedi were dead and beyond help, but the children of the Force lived. He'd figure out ways to protect those who came here- a quiet hint at the right time, subtle sabotage to the Inquisitor's 'tests'. He'd find ways.  
  
    ( _He dreamed of General Fisto that night but unlike the previous dreams, his general's smile had held hope instead of grief, approval instead of pain. In his dream he'd smiled back, reveling in the pride of having pleased his General._  
  
_"You will do anything you set out to do, my dear boy. Protect the children well and you will fulfill all my faith in you."_  
  
_"Sir, yes sir," he'd replied through a tightened throat. Then he'd awoken, his face damp with tears of hope rather than impotent rage and pain. He had his mission now and he'd accomplish it. According to Jedi belief Kit Fisto was one with the Force now, but Crackshot was sure that wherever his general was, he was smiling upon his former trooper's efforts. And the memory of that smile was all Crackshot needed to keep him going._ )


End file.
